


Variables

by the_deep_magic



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Crying, Cunnilingus, Established Relationship, F/M, Femdom, Hurt/Comfort, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 04:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_deep_magic/pseuds/the_deep_magic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just her words and her hands and his body.  And it’s so much more than he ever hoped for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Variables

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in this fandom, so a bit nervous. No real spoilers, but brief mentions of 2x15 “Revelations” and 4x24 “Amplification”

It’s complicated.

Not that “complicated” has ever been a problem for Reid, but in dealing with his own psyche, even he has to admit that’s a labyrinth beyond his understanding.

Because he’s been tied up before, usually with a gun to his head or a knife to his throat.  And he’s been beaten, by everyone from playground bullies to his own boss to a dissociative serial killer.  He’s seen racks of medieval torture instruments still coated with the blood of the modern-day victims they were used on.  He’s lost count of the number of times he’s been held hostage, let alone the very delicate negotiations with armed psychopaths that make him feel like he’s got no control over anything, not even his own life.

And none of that has ever, not once, turned him on.

Which is why he’s not so much worried as he is confused.  Human behavior is seldom rational, but it _is_ often predictable, otherwise he couldn’t do his job at all.  The problem lies in the variables – there are simply too many of them, and he’s at a point where he can admit that luck and good timing have as much to do with the team’s success rate as logical calculations.

So it stands to reason that there are variables in his own life that he either doesn’t or can’t know, and it plagues him.  Plagues him to the point of anxiety, the point where the facts to become fuzzy because he can’t deal with the stress of it.  It’s happened before – he can recite every book his mother ever read to him, but for a long time he couldn’t even remember the color of his father’s eyes.  On a certain level, it’s reassuring: it means he’s not just a human data recorder.  It means he’s _human_.

So why would he want something that is, at its most basic level, dehumanizing?

Naked, on his hands and knees on her bed, unable to move until she gives the word, he is little more than a machine waiting for programming.  It’s humiliating, and no matter how many times he ends up here, it always begins with him fighting himself in his own head.   He shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t _need_ this like he does.  It’s not considered a mental disorder, hasn’t been officially since the DSM-IV came out, and he would hardly judge someone else for their preference in sexual release.  But… why him?

She’s well aware of the fight, and always lets it happen for the first few minutes until, unbeknownst to him, his breath is coming hard and fast and his hands are clenching in the bed sheets.  He’s not aroused, not yet – still too deep in his head, too aware of the pressure in his chest that’s been building for days.  It’s up to her when and how to jerk him out of it and _keep_ him out of it for as long as she can.

Sometimes it’s strong fingers tangled in his hair, yanking his head up from where it’s sagged below his shoulders.  Tonight, it’s the scrape of fingernails down the long plane of his back – a light touch, too light, makes him apprehensive of what’s coming.  But he doesn’t know.   He never does, and that’s the point.

When it got to be too much, there was only one person he told.  Not that he would ever tell his boss anyway, but he can only imagine the look on Hotch’s face… well, actually his expression probably wouldn’t change much.  Morgan would laugh and clap him a little too hard on the back.  If he took him seriously (which was doubtful), he’d probably offer to take Reid to a _professional_ , someone in leather corsets and stilettos that would have no idea the fine line he already walks, and how can he explain?  Prentiss would take it in stride with hardly a blink, just list the reasons why he shouldn’t be worried, why it’s normal.  And JJ…  He shudders at the thought of telling sweet, wide-eyed JJ.

Why he expected Garcia would understand, he can’t say.  Maybe some of the variables point that way: her subversion of Bureau regulations up to and including dress codes, her willingness to go outside the boundaries – and sometimes the law – to get the job done.  He knows she watched him die and come back to life in that godforsaken shack, and it was to her that he dictated what could have been his last words to his mother.  She keeps insisting she’s not a profiler, but Reid would swear that Garcia seems to know things about him that he’s never said, things she couldn’t possibly find on any hard drive or database.

But not even he could have predicted that when he showed up in her office after hours and it all spilled out of him, she not only understood, but was willing to actually do something about it.  She only asked him one question: _Are you able to tell me to stop if you need me to?  Can you do that?_   He was so shocked that he tumbled all over himself saying _yes, yes, of course I can_.

At the time, he wasn’t even sure it was true, that was how desperate he was.

But together they found limits, and found them quickly.  No restraints of any kind – they make him panic, take him back to places that he never wants to go.  The same with gags.  He gets the feeling she likes that better anyway, making him control his body and his voice himself.  Nothing sharp, save for her fingernails.  In fact, they rarely use props at all.  Just her words and her hands and his body.  And it’s so much more than he ever hoped for.

Tonight, she takes her time dragging her fingernails lightly across his skin.  “Have you been a good boy?” she asks calmly.

His face is already starting to flush and he shakes his head.  He fucked up this time; if he’d completed the geographic profile just a little sooner, they would have found the woman before the unsub raped and beat her.  They were able to save her life, but not spare her the savage trauma she went through first.  No one else blames him – they’re amazed that he was able to narrow down the location at all – but everything had been _there_ , right in front of him, and it still took him too long to see it.

A sharp pinch to his flank snaps him out of his thoughts.  “ _Words_ ,” she says pointedly.  “Have you been a good boy?”

“No, ma’am,” he croaks out.

She still drags her fingernails down his back with the same slow tempo, but she digs in harder, not enough to break the skin but enough to leave angry red marks.  “Then what are we going to do with you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

He wants to crawl beneath the covers and curl up like a child, but he can already feel his cock beginning to harden, so he holds himself still, muscles so rigid he’s practically vibrating with it.  _Hurt me_ , he wants to say.  _Punish me.  Make me beg_.  But though he’s allowed to make as much noise as he wants, he’s not allowed his precious words unless she asks him a question.

His eyes are closed and he’s focusing all his energy on keeping still, so he doesn’t expect the hard, open-handed slap on his ass, and he doesn’t even try to keep the yelp from escaping his mouth.  _Yes, yes, that’s it_ , he thinks, and steels himself for the next blow… but it doesn’t come.  He waits.  No fingernails, no touching, nothing but the sound of her breathing, calm and steady beneath the harsh bellow of his own breath, to let him know she’s even still in the room.

She’s doing it on purpose, keeping him on edge, and he has to bite down hard on his lip to keep in the _please, again, please_.   But a whimper escapes his mouth anyway.  At that, she grasps a handful of his ass, still stinging from the blow, and digs her nails in.  “Is this what you want?”

“Yes, please!” he cries out, almost before she’s finished the question.  Some nights, it’s not about pain, it’s about denial – some nights she’ll secure a ring around the base of his cock and ride him as long as she likes, as though he’s little more than her life-size sex toy – no touching allowed, of course.  But tonight that’s not what he wants, and she knows it.  After that one slap, his cock is so hard it’s curved up nearly to his belly, and he needs… he just _needs_. 

“So polite,” she says, and he can hear the smirk in her voice, even though he can’t look at her.  She’s never told him not to; he just… can’t.  Not like this.  Not yet.

She still hasn’t loosened her grip on him and he’s starting to squirm, five points of deep, puncturing pain keeping him still.  Then she lets go, and this time he doesn’t have to wait – another slap lands squarely over the first, and he nearly sobs with relief.

She varies the tempo so he never knows when the next hit’s coming, or where – every few slaps, she’ll hit dead on the tender spot where his ass meets his thighs.  Those are the ones that make him cry out the loudest, though almost more painful are the pauses she takes to rub his raw, reddened skin with her palms.  He wants her to _bite_ like she sometimes does, wants it so badly, but it’s not up to him, and she’s giving him so much already.

It doesn’t take long until he’s dripping precum, ashamed at making a mess on her sheets but completely helpless to stop it.  He can’t come like this, not without any friction at all on his cock, so she can keep going as long as she wants.  The first time they did this, he expected he’d eventually go numb, but it doesn’t happen – the burning pain keeps building upon itself until even the gentlest touch is agony, and he can’t tell if the howling he hears is real or just in his head.

His mouth is trying to form words.  It’s not allowed, but he can’t stop it – he’s begging.  For more, for less, he’s not even sure, just _something_.  She’ll know what he needs, but whatever it is, _please_ , he needs it _now_.

He knows she understands when she stops, and though it’s a relief when her hands leave him, it also breaks the connection between them and he feels helplessly adrift.  He fights through the mental fog to realize that she’s grabbed a pillow from the headboard and set it under him.  Then her hand is on him again, the small of his back this time, pushing as she says, “Down,” and he doesn’t need to be told twice; he collapses to the bed, legs stretching out and head buried against his forearms, wailing into the sheets as his hips hit the pillow, pressing his cock against his tensed stomach.

Now she’s stopped teasing and started hitting him rhythmically, hard, practically encouraging him to hump against the pillow and he’s reduced to _nothing_ , just a nervous system seeking release, a rutting animal.  He presses up on his elbows a few inches for leverage and his hands clench painfully in on themselves as he rides each thrust, completely unaware of the tears rolling down his cheeks until he sees the dark, wet circles hit the sheets.

She never shushes him when he starts to cry.

Eventually the blows stop and he feels fingers card through his hair, twisting in for a tight but not painful grip.  “It’s time,” she whispers, and he feels her other hand push between his legs, into the barely-existent space between the pillow and his body.  He thrusts into her fist all of twice and he’s coming, sobbing and wracked with tormented pleasure and held tight in both of her hands.  She holds him through the long shudders until he’s still again, collapsing completely to the bed, hiding his face in the sheets.

The worst is when she has to let go to get that special lotion she uses off the bedside table, even though she’s back in less than a second and rubbing the cream on his abused flesh.  It burns, _oh god it burns_ as she rubs it on and he snivels shamefully into the sheets, but after a few moments it takes a little of the pain away.  Not a lot, but some.  She keeps touching him, rubbing soothingly down his thighs as he cries himself out.

When he’s quieted down, she moves to sit on the edge of the bed near his head and begins to stroke his hair tenderly.  For how long, he doesn’t know, but the rhythm is even and soothing.  Taking a deep breath, he finally turns to face her, pressing his cheek into her thigh.  He still can’t bring himself to look her in the eye, but even though she’s still fully dressed, he can smell her arousal.  It makes his heart leap in his chest.  Sometimes, if he’s been good, she’ll let him…

“Can I?” he asks, gazing up at her.

She smiles gently, still stroking his hair.  “You feel up to it?”

“Oh my god, yes.”

She laughs at that, moving to sit up against the headboard, getting comfortable against the pillows.  She’s barely had time to spread her legs when he pushes his head beneath her skirt, mouthing her through her panties.  They’re so wet, he can taste her already, hot and sweet against his tongue and she laughs again.  This is his favorite part, when he’s lucid enough for it – he’s not sure if she genuinely doesn’t know or is pretending for his benefit, but she always seems a little surprised at his enthusiasm.

She pulls him away by his hair, but just long enough for her to tug the bright green underwear down and off.  “I ought to punish you for doing that without permission,” she says, but her eyes glint with humor.  “Alright,” she says, shimmying her skirt up to her waist.  “Mouth only.  Hands behind your back.”

It is a little more of a challenge this way – he has to struggle to keep his balance and it puts his neck at a strange angle – but he’s more than up to it.  She gasps loudly at the first touch of his tongue to her bare skin, and he feels warmth flow through him at the sound.  Maybe she thinks her part is done when she’s finished tending to him, but it’s _this_ that makes him feel complete: giving back to her, just _giving_ , knowing he affects her as much as she does him.

He always thinks about teasing her a little, but he never does.  He can’t help himself; she’s so responsive and ready that he can’t focus on anything but making her come.  It takes a little longer since he can’t use his fingers – which he knows she loves – but when his tongue finds the right rhythm against her clit, she starts shaking, clutching his hair convulsively.  He knows that female orgasms almost invariably last longer than those of males (an average of 20 seconds, as opposed to anywhere from 3 to 10 seconds) but he’s still always amazed at just how long it goes on, how long she moans and presses against his face.  It feels like a heavenly eternity, and he draws it out as long as he can.  She doesn’t get oversensitive right away, so he can bring her down gently with his lips and tongue even as her body slowly relaxes and she releases her grip on his hair.

Eventually, she slides down on the bed, guides him up to rest his head on the softness of her belly, her hand hot on the back of his neck, and he feels… peace.  It’s such a rare feeling, his head clear of the usual racing thoughts, and he tries to freeze the moment in his memory.  _This is what sanity must feel like_.  When she gently wipes at his face with the edge of her skirt, the moisture there is almost all hers and not his tears anymore.

It can’t last, of course.  It never does.  He doesn’t feel that horrible pressure in his chest now, but the burn of his ass and thighs reminds him that it’ll come back, that he’ll need this again.  Maybe he’ll always need this.  The shame starts to rush back in and he fights the urge to hide his face again. 

She must feel him start to tense, because she promptly tilts his head up to look at her.  “Whatever’s going on in that oversized brain of yours, stop it,” she says firmly, reaching down to stroke his lower lip with the pad of her thumb.  “You need what you need.  No shame in that.”

But he’s seen the worst of what people need, and what happens when they try to get it.

She must see it on his face, because she says, “You don’t need to be scared of this.”  Then she moves her hand to caress his forehead.  “And you definitely don’t need to be scared of what’s up here.  It’s good.  _You’re_ good.”

When she pulls him up for a kiss, he realizes he was wrong before – _this_ is the best part, the best reward she could possibly give him.  He pushes up on his hands and parts his lips on cue, letting her take what she likes.  When she grins against his mouth and tugs gently at his lower lip with her teeth, he feels human again, real and whole and secure.

That’s when it hits him: for all he feels by turns humiliated, impatient, angry, ashamed, ecstatic, he never truly feels _afraid_ , not when he’s with her.  She’s his safe place, his haven.  Emotion starts to well up in his throat and he has to stop himself, as he does nearly every time, from whispering _I love you oh god I love you so much_ , because he’s not sure that it’s appropriate for… whatever this is.  He hasn’t had a lot of first-hand experience navigating relationships, and he couldn’t begin to classify this one if he tried.  Most of all, he’d be crushed if she didn’t say it back.

But maybe the words don’t matter quite so much.  Because after kissing him soundly, she arranges him carefully on the bed, mindful of his raw skin, then removes her clothes and joins him, pulling the covers up over both of them.  In the morning, she’ll check him over, put on a little more lotion if he needs it, give him a lingering kiss and send him on his way.  And he knows the next time he needs her, she’ll be there.  Invariably.


End file.
